Читать книгу Pepita - Vita Sackville-West - Страница 6

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They were, in fact, living in exceedingly humble circumstances in a mere basement at No. 15 Calle de la Encomienda, peddling old clothes for a living. Some idea of their humble station in life may be gained from their own occupations and those of their relations and friends. Thus, Catalina’s father, of gypsy blood, had been a sandal-maker in Malaga and as a girl she had helped him in his trade; they were so poor that he had not even a shop, but worked in his own room. Her first cousin went about Malaga with a donkey, selling fruit. Her nephew was a fruit-seller likewise. Another cousin had married a stevedore. Catalina herself had married one Pedro Duran, who as a bachelor had existed on any job he could pick up, as a dock-hand, a journeyman, and what-not, but who after his marriage opened a small barber’s shop on the ground floor of their house in the Calle de la Puente. Catalina had a great friend during those years in Malaga, and it is to this friend that we owe much of the information about Catalina’s early life. She was a garrulous person and her evidence is abundant. Sometimes a washer-woman, sometimes a children’s nurse, sometimes a general servant at the Hotel Alameda where she helped the chambermaid, she lodged with her mother in rooms in Catalina’s house, because it was the cheapest place they could find. She saw a lot of Catalina at that time, for Catalina who had tried taking in washing for about a year abandoned that employment in favour of selling clothing instead, and prevailed upon her friend to accompany her on her rounds. They used to visit the wholesale clothing shops together, lay in their stock, and then go round to private houses selling it.

This friend of course knew Catalina’s husband, Pedro Duran, who is stated rather vaguely to have died because “he got shot in the finger in a revolution.” More specifically, he is said to have died in the Provincial Charity Hospital of a wound accidentally received during some fêtes held in honour of the memory of General Torrijos, leaving his widow with two young children, Diego and Pepita. The washer-woman friend of course knew these children too. They were said to resemble one another as much as a boy can resemble a girl. Diego was wild and troublesome from the first, his parents could not induce him to remain at school,—“they wanted him to go to school, but he wouldn’t stop. He had set his mind on a soldier’s life; he was very harum-scarum and would do nothing. At about sixteen he enlisted and his mother bought him out,”—poor Catalina, with little money to spare!—“but he enlisted again and went away as a soldier to Cuba.” This is the first but by no means the last that we hear of Diego.

The daughter Pepita, on the other hand, was far more tractable. Her devotion to her mother was of a nature to be considered excessive by their friends, who on occasion did not hesitate to describe Catalina as Pepita’s evil angel. This was perhaps going a little too far, and in any case the expression evil angel, mal ángel, is too commonly current in the south of Spain for it to carry as sinister a meaning as in English; I would rather say that Catalina lavished on her daughter the fierce and possessive love which Latin women do often display towards their children, injudicious to a degree and mischievous in its consequences, but certainly not malevolent in its intention. In those early days of her widowhood at Malaga she had the girl to sleep in her bed, and never tired of combing and dressing the magnificent hair which even in that southern province was remarkable for its beauty. Catalina’s sister, a familiar and constant visitor at the house, was of the opinion that there was no more beautiful girl in Andalusia. “I have seen her when she has got up from bed and put on her dressing-jacket, and with her hair down she was more beautiful than when she was dressed and adorned.”

It may seem surprising to read of Pepita as being “dressed and adorned” in that very poor and shoddy establishment of the Calle de la Puente where “the houses were very old and bad”, but it appears that the idea of making her daughter into a dancer had already formed in Catalina’s mind. She was her jewel, her treasure, and her pride, for whom nothing was too good and no ambition too extravagant. It is rather touching to read that “she was very careful of her and brought her up with great delicacy”; rather touching, too, to find that she not only paid for lessons at a dancing-class, but also provided four silk dresses out of her meagre earnings, different costumes for different dances. Her friend the washer-woman was much impressed by this luxury. She had seen Catalina ten or twenty times taking Pepita to the dancing-class, and had also seen the dresses which were “much adorned and very expensive” hanging up in Catalina’s house. Before very long, in fact after Pepita had been having her lessons for about eight months, the washer-woman heard that an opera company had come to Malaga; she heard it said that they were foreigners and sang in a foreign language. She felt proud that her young acquaintance Pepita should be engaged to dance in connection with that company, but regretted that she never saw her dance there, “because I had no money to go with.” She did, however, see Pepita’s dresses being placed on a tray and carried by a boy sent from the theatre to fetch them.

Catalina’s cousin Juan was more fortunate; he went twice to see the child perform; he could not go oftener because, like the washer-woman, he “had not the money to spare”; also he was obliged to go alone, not being able to afford to take anyone with him. He regretted not being able to go oftener, for he came away full of enthusiasm for his young relative. “She danced in company with four or five others. She was the best dancer; I heard everybody saying in the theatre that Pepita was the first dancer. Everybody applauded and said she would be a good dancer. She was just like a bird in the air, she danced so well.” He went round to Catalina’s house next day and told her what a great success Pepita had made. Catalina replied with commendable modesty that the child had a natural gift for dancing.